Deuteronomy 15:1-6 Bible Study | Episode 898

March 19, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Deuteronomy 15:1-6  Bible Study | Episode #898

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in Deuteronomy, chapter 15. And to tell you the truth, you know, many of you know that I have a, you know, keen interest in finance and, and things like that. I have, you know, my background as far as my undergraduate degree and, and many of the things that I've just experienced in life have led me in those in this. Into this area. I've got a lot of interest. I love athletics. I love. I love finance. I love history, I love philosophy, I love. I love the law in. In the sense of learning how to function in the legal system that we have here in Alabama and in the United States. But mainly I love the Word of God. And so the Word of God is. Well, I mean, it's perfection. It really is. And when I'm studying the Word of God, it's neat how sometimes when you're studying the Word of God, how the Word of God will just layer right over top of something that is really important to you or something that really spent a lot of time thinking about. And then you realize, oh, yeah, but God came first. And so maybe the reason why I think the Word of God is so in line with the truth is because it's really the source of truth. And that's true of this passage. As far as finances. You could spend your whole life. You could spend your whole life based off of just this passage, just this group of instructions that you find in chapter 15. It is a powerful teacher. And not just in the direct instructions that are given, but the insights on which the instructions are given. Just the insights that you gain from looking at this and seeing it from God's perspective. Because. Well, because it's. It's powerful. It just. It is. It is a. It is a primer of. It is a primer of how to do. How to do your finances, how. How to live and how to think about things. And so I just, I. I am shocked and amazed when we get to this at how good it is, how really, really wonderful it is, and how much it mirrors many things that seem to be just the bedrock fundamental principles of some of the financial issues, financial principles, financial ideas that our society is built on. It says, at the end of every seven years, verse one, you shall grant a release of debts. The word there is debt, probably best translated remission. And remission is a hard word because it's not used regularly in the human language or in the English language. People don't use the word remission regularly. But let me give you another passage that kind of gives you the idea, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin, meaning without there being a payment of death, the shedding of life, the get the death of life, there is no remission of sin, meaning a release from. And it's more than just forgiveness. It is being released. Okay. And you go, I don't really understand the difference. Well, forgiveness means I just, on a ledger sheet, I just don't owe that debt anymore. Okay. You know, you'll hear credit card companies nowadays talk about debt forgiveness. Well, what they're saying is that your debt that's on their ledger sheet as a credit to theirs and a debit to yours, your debt is released, it's gone, it's out, it's not on the sheet anymore. But remission is more than that. Remission is not just a release of debt. It's a release of all that goes along with the debt. It's a release of all that binds you and holds you down to that debt. And so when the Bible says without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin, God's promising that there is a methodology by which to remit sin or have your sin not only removed from the debt column, but also your debt or your sin remove you from the chains that bind you to death in this world. And so this is a powerful passage in that it is alluding to principles that are bigger than this. But it is a great principle for the Jewish people as they entered into the promised land. He says, at the end of seven years, you shall grant a release of debt. Meaning we're not going to hold people to debts that are longer than seven years. We're not going to hold them to debts that are something that just hang over them for the rest of their lives. And let me say this, this is not debt secured by an asset. This is actual debt. This is just straight up, I gave you a personal loan of $1,000 and you've got 10 years to pay it off. Well, here it's saying, don't do that. Don't, don't make it 10 years. It's too long. It weighs over them. And you go, where do we have that in our society? Well, we have it in a few interesting places. Many of the debts that you can occur as far as, as far as your medical bills and stuff like that, can hang over you for years and years and years. Now there is a process called bankruptcy to get you out of it. But, but, and by the way, that's a biblical process and we're going to get to that. It is powerful. But, but it is, it is something that hangs over people and oftentimes holds them down, you know, chains them to that issue, that problem that they had in the past, maybe a deep medical issue that they had in the past. Also, interestingly, these, the, this debt that hangs over people for a long, long time in their life is student loan debt, educational debt. Educational debt can't be bankrupted, by the way. It can't be bankrupted and it hangs over you forever. And by the way, during the Obama administration, the Obama administration took over all educational debt. So really, you're indebted to the government. You're a slave. And when I say debt, bond servants, we're going to deal with that in a few Bible studies ahead. Bond servants are those who are bound by a debt and they are working to pay that debt off. They were also called bond slaves. And in many ways, all slavery is that way, except for the institutionalized slavery that we had, that we in the west had during the, during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Now that kind of slavery has gone on in the world for, well, for eons past and still is going on in the world today, but, but not in the West. And so when we're, when we're thinking about this, educational debt hangs over somebody forever and ever. And oftentimes the education that they got was not as valuable as the debt that encumbers them. And so God said, can't be more than seven years. Now I want you to think about this because it's very important. It's a principle by which I live by. If I'm not going to be able to hold somebody to a debt for seven years, is seven years is the maximum amount God would ever want me to hold somebody to a debt, does God really want me to be getting into the business of debt as far as giving someone money for a signature or saying that they owe me. Does he really want me to get in that business? Very much. Now there are those people who, they're necessary, they're good for society, for us to, for people to be able to take out of debt and pay for things. But when I'm not talking about the institutional business side of, of giving, you know, going into debt and going to somebody and getting a loan, I'm not talking about that. What I'm talking about is our personal lives, our own personal walks. And really this is about that also our personal walks with God. You, you, you need to be careful about loaning money to family members and friends. And why do I say that? Well, and you go, pastor, you're never going to get verse six. Well, I probably not. I probably ought to spend some time in this chapter just because it is, it is. Got some great principles to it. Why shouldn't I get into. Get into people owing me money, especially family members? Well, because it becomes a, it becomes a burden between the two. Anytime you have money on the ledger sheet, relationship. I'll say that again. Anytime you've got money on the ledger sheet of your relationship, that's going to cause problems between you and that person. There's going to be a strain and attention between you that shouldn't be, shouldn't be. It's not necessary, it should not take place. That strain is, that strain is, is going to divide you over time. And so you go, what do you do, Pastor, when somebody in your family needs some money? Well, I give it to them. And if they want to pay me back, they can notice in my heart. It's not a debt in my heart. They don't owe me anything. In fact, the Bible says, owe no man anything but the debt of love. And it's going to get into that for this passage here. It's going to explain that principle in a different way. But the same principle and the same idea. It's going to, it's going to teach us that I don't want anybody who I have a personal relationship. I don't want them owing me anything, and I don't want to owe them anything. Why? Because it gets in the way and people act strangely and weird about it. And let me say this, I don't know why that is. I can't explain it. But this whole debt thing and this whole bondage thing that goes along with debt is a powerful psychological thing. It is very powerful psychologically. And by the way, with our sin nature and us being bound to sin and our struggle with sin. You could see why it would be psychological. In fact, in some ways you could see how it'd be, how it would cause post traumatic stress. You know, we as Christians who, who struggle with sin and then, and then we're delivered, we do have some PTSD about our sin nature and we act that way. And you know, I'm making a joke, but really it's kind of true, you know, do you have PTSD over your sin nature before you were redeemed by the blood of the lamb? Well, I, I dare say 95% of us would say, yeah, I do. I, I don't want that anymore. I, it's painful to me. It hurts. It hurts. And it does. And it does. And so why would I want to add to that PTSD in the context of a really, really intimate relationship, A friend, a family member, church, somebody in my church family. Why would I want to put myself in that position? I'm not, I'm not ever going to put myself in that position over someone. I try my best. And what does that mean? Well, it means if I give you money, probably I don't consider you owing me that money for we have personal relationship with each other, which means you don't have to pay me back. I'm not keeping a ledger sheet. And you go, well, there is a ledger out there. I do owe it to you. Well, that's fine. That's your ledger. It's not mine. It's not on my heart, it's not my problem. It's not something that I'm going to let get in between me and you. And so when my children need something, I don't pull out the ledger sheet and say, you owe me this. I don't do that. What I do, well, I just give it to them. If a friend needs it and I see it as a real big genuine need, I give it to them. If someone that I'm trying to help, someone in life, trying to help through life, maybe someone I'm discipling needs some help, needs some encouragement, you just give it to them. You give it to them. And, and, and if they pay you back because of that relationship, because of the love of that relationship, even the better, it's even greater because now I've got, I've got what I don't consider a debt being paid back to me. I've got a gift given, being given back to me. So I gave it as a gift and I get to receive it as a gift and it's double blessed. It's double blessed. And, and, and that's the way it ought to be. That's the way we, we ought to deal with each other. And when you go into your finances, I want you to hear me, that is an important principle to have because it will cause you not to grab hold to the money. It'll cause you to grab hold to the relationship. And so when we're, when we're entering into this whole big old chapter that's talking about finances and how to do it, how God told the children of Israel to do it before they went into the promised land, as we enter into this chapter and we deal with this, the first thing he says is if you're going to put somebody in a debt, if they're going to loan somebody some money and they're going to be indebted to you, if they're going to be, if that's going to happen, shouldn't be over seven years. There's got to be a limit to it. And I would say even go further than that. Don't make it a limit. Don't, don't enter into debt with them. Don't do it at all.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.